The famed paparazzi, information thieves and the dreaded traffic control cameras use flash cameras. Prior art systems are known to sense the intruder's flash and then send a counter flash right back toward the intruder's camera lenses, thereby preventing the complete image by blinding the lens with some form of light, whiting out the entire picture, of the intruder camera that may have been taken.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,208 (2002) to Kaszckak discloses an ultraviolet laser emitter which defeats the entire picture of the automatic traffic control camera. The laser gun shoots straight out from its housing back into the intruder camera lens. A flash detector triggers the laser gun.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,937,163 (2005) to Caulfield et al. discloses a flash detector which triggers a counteracting flash with a time delay of 100 micro-seconds (0.000100 seconds) after detecting the intruder's flash. The apparatus saturates the entire area of the intruding camera's image field by directing the counteracting flash directly at the intruding camera.
The disadvantages of these systems are several. Nearly all cameras in use today are digital cameras with some form of high speed image detection, such as Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs). The typical response time of a digital camera from flash to detection is about ten micro seconds of time to acquire the incoming image. Thus a digital intruder camera could flash and acquire the desired image before a 100 microsecond delay had elapsed, making it difficult for a 100 micro second delayed counterflash to prevent a digital image by an intruder camera operating at about 10 micro seconds of response time. Disadvantages also include flashing back at the intruder camera which temporarily blinds the intruding cameraman, a person near him or vehicle driver, as well as blinding the entire intruder camera's field of view. In addition, laser energy from a laser beam is invisible and has the potential of causing eye damage if a person's eye was in line with the emitted laser energy. This temporary blinding is a surprise blinding. This surprise could result in an accident such as stepping in front of a moving vehicle, losing control of a vehicle or eye damage.
What is needed in the art is a limited field for a counteracting flash with no surprise flash aimed at the intruding camera, other people or vehicle drivers. The present invention solves this need with counteracting flashes aimed perpendicular to the intruding camera flashes. A special housing prevents the counteracting flash from reaching the intruding camera flash and focuses by reflectors the counteracting flash over a limited protected area to be protected from an intruder camera's full field of view, such as a license plate, ID tag, home window or business window in all references as to where the technology would be used. Thus, the intruder camera operation is not affected while simultaneously preventing only a desired limited area within the intruder camera's field of view from being imaged, by over exposing only the limited area in normal light wavelengths and reverse wavelengths, which are called negatives.